what would you be doing today if you only had 37 days to live?

27 March 2008

Women keep lighthouses - Ida Lewis

Toughness doesn't have to come in a pinstripe suit. -Dianne Feinstein

Used to be, and in some places still is,
women could only expect to be teachers, nurses, or secretaries, as my friend
Janna writes in a recent story.
Noble professions all, among the very noblest and most important, and yet a
choice of three only? Was there anything more we could do? Like be a tuba
player, or a physicist, or a candle maker or a poet?

Imagine my delight on visiting the Tybee Lighthouse
yesterday, our happy caravan pumping our way down the bike path across the
island, enjoying brisk blue air as we made our way there on this blessedly flat
space, anticipating the 178 winding heart-pumping steps to the top of the black
and white tower, enough height for one day. As we bought our tickets to begin
our ascent, a book caught my eye in the gift shop: Women
Who Kept the Lights: An Illustrated History of Female Lighthouse Keepers.
It became my beach time reading, sparking all manner of internal monologue:
What do we consciously or unconsciously do to our young baby women? Are we
opening up possibilities to them, or closing them down, even in these
enlightened days?

“That’s a girl’s name, Mama,” Tess said to me one
day last week, when I mentioned a friend of mine and used the word “he” to
describe that person. “Actually, it could be either a girl name or a boy name,”
I explained quietly. “What makes it a girl’s name, do you think?” I asked. And so it begins, this arduous, quiet,
precious deprogramming of messages about gender that come so early; they are so
pervasive, so clear. “Boys don’t play with dolls,” she explained very carefully
and seriously to me one night, holding my face between her two hands, tilting
my chin to her level so we would be eye to eye. “Oh, really?” I started. Emma
looked up from her chair in the corner, knowing it was only a matter of time
before the flip chart got hauled out and I started in with my “Gender
Performance 101” workshop. It is one she has heard once or twice or eleven
jillion times.

And so on Tybee
Island—as I sat bundled on the beach in a coat, hood, and four beach towels
wound around me like Hans
Castorp when those nice nurses wheeled him out to take the magic mountain
air—the story of an intrepid female lighthouse keeper named Ida Lewis caught my
eye.

Born Idawalley Zorada Lewis in 1842, she preferred
to be called Ida. I imagine we all might. Her father became the first light
keeper at Lime Rock in Newport Harbor, Rhode Island in 1853 when she was eleven years old. At the time, there was only a temporary lantern in a rough
shed, put there in case the keeper couldn’t row the 200 yards back to shore in
a storm. The government took pity on him and in 1857 built a beautiful Greek
Revival building with a hip roof to make his job easier—no more arduous commute
by sea. Her father moved Ida, then only 15, and the family to Lime Rock,
completely surrounded by water.

Less than four months later, Hosea
Lewis was struck down by a stroke, leaving Ida to help her mother take care
of the lighthouse, her stricken father, and a seriously ill sister. Her
schooling ended.

No small feat, that lighthouse. The lamp had to be
filled with oil at sundown and again at midnight, along with trimming the wick,
polishing the carbon from the reflectors, and extinguishing the light at dawn.
Can I imagine my fifteen year-old doing this? Um, let me think. No.

The only way to the mainland was via boat, and Ida,
the oldest of four children, rowed the other children to school every day and
returned with whatever supplies were needed from the town.

That little girl
spent the rest of her life on that rock, dying there in 1911.

Ida started saving lives from that rock when she
was 14 or 15, single handedly rescuing dozens of people over the years. As
one rescued soul recounted, "When I saw the boat approaching and a woman
rowing, I thought, she's only a woman and she will never reach us. But I soon
changed my mind." Ida was a small person, weighing only 103 pounds, but
known as the best swimmer in Newport by the time she was fourteen years old,
able to row as well as any man.

When she was just fifteen, four young men capsized
their boat in the harbor when one of them climbed the mast and started rocking
the boat to tease his friends. Since none of the boys could swim, they would
have drowned if Ida hadn’t saved them as they clung to the hull of their boat
screaming for help. In the dead of winter 1866, she came to the rescue of a
drunken sailor. In 1867 during a storm, 3 sheepherders had gone into the water
after a valuable sheep. Ida not only saved them but the sheep as well. On March
29,1869, Ida came to the aid of two soldiers from Fort Adams--their sailboat had overturned in a storm; it was a rescue immortalized in a
painting commissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard, and for which she received
a medal by act of Congress.

Her fame spread quickly after the 1869 rescue. Ida
appeared in the New York Tribune, Harper's weekly, Leslie's
Magazine, and other leading newspapers. The "Life Saving Benevolent
Association of New York" sent her a medal and one hundred dollars (a large
sum to someone only making $500 a year). In Newport on July 4th, a parade was held in her honor, followed by the gift of a Mahogany rowboat with red velvet cushions, gold braid around the gunwales, and gold plated oarlocks. The boat was named the Rescue.

President Grant and General Sherman both made trips
to Lime Rock to meet her, she became a buddy of Admiral Dewey for whom she
named one of her beloved cocker spaniels, and she received a private pension
from Andrew Carnegie when no government resource was forthcoming. Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony took it upon themselves to visit her on the
little island of Lime Rock.

Of her life’s work, Ida stated plainly, "There
are hundreds of boats going in and out of this harbor. It's part of my
happiness to know that they are depending on me to guide them safely."

In 1872 when her father died, her mom was appointed
the officlal lighthouse keeper, even though it was Ida who was actually doing
the keeper’s work. In 1879, Ida was officially appointed and received her own
salary as lightkeeper.

On the night of October 24, 1911, Ida's death at
Lime Rock brought all the vessels that were anchored in Newport Harbor to toll their bells in her honor. What a beautiful sound that must have been.

In 1924 the Rhode Island legislature changed the name of Lime Rock to Ida Lewis Rock and
the lighthouse service renamed the lighthouse "Ida Lewis Lighthouse," the only time this honor has ever been given to a keeper.

37days
Do it Now Challenge

I taught Junior Achievement for nine weeks at a
local high school recently. What I was distressed about most wasn’t the
difficulty the kids had in paying attention or staying awake, but the smallness
of their dreams, a tightly drawn set of possibilities, not a wild and audacious
one. Can we all commit just to one child on this planet that we will open up
the world of possibilities for them? Just to one child, ours or someone else’s,
or a child we don’t yet know? That in that one child’s life, we will make sure
they see big horizons and possibilities? That’s all. Just one.

It might be as
simple as cutting out newspaper stories about unusual or interesting jobs for them every few
months. Or taking them to see an artist at work in their studio. Or buying them
one of the “Cool Careers for Girls” books by Ceel Pasternak. Or introducing them
to a health care worker who can tell them firsthand what it takes to be a
physical therapist. Kids need us to help break open the horizon so they can see
their own sun. Truly they do. And sometimes, as in Ida’s case, being thrust into the world with trust allows them to find their own ground, their
own strength, their own rescue.

For example, a disproportionate share
of young black men in my town don’t graduate from high school. I have a dream
that individual families will take on the task of helping one boy when they
enter first grade. That their responsibility is to do what it takes to make
sure that boy graduates twelve years later—perhaps by listening to them. What a
radical act. What we could do if we each took on one, to hold and keep and
raise the bar for them. Just one. These boys are drowning. These girls are adopting small dreams. Ida rescued people
one at a time. Surely we can.

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very cool post!

i did a painting of a woman holding a lantern called "lighthouse" that's one of my favorites. this story of ida made me think of her. in the skirt of the figure i painted there are a group of women that i transfered from an old photograph. i like to think of them as the women who came before her, supporting her and carving the path. you can see a picture of the painting here: http://www.bluetreeartgallery.com/lighthouse.php

I dealt with these kind of sterotypes every day as teacher. I often found myself saying, "Why is it you think that girls can't...? that boys can't...?"

That said, even at 2 my little daughter is a girlie-girl. She loves to play house, dress up, wear 'makeup', loves boas, tea and dresses. But, she has a tool kit and knows how to use it. (Seriously, she unscrewed the back of a toy the other day with a real screwdriver and replaced the batteries herself and rescrewed it without help, but with close supervision, of course.) She loves cars and we race constantly. I try to instill in her a sense of she can do 'anything' she wants to do. I try to instill it in her other playmates as well.

But on a bit of a tangent... why is it that little boys tend to be 'no-no'd' about doing what is seen as girlie things while if girls play with cars it's ok? For instance--if a little boy decides to play tea set, why is that any less ok than a little girl playing crash cars? It seems like the tolerance today for boys doing 'girl' things is less than girl doing boy things.

Of course, I think it's fine if anyone decides what they want to do is what they want to do... but why the difference, do you think?

Great story, Patti and referencing my birth state to boot. This challenge could also extend to consider not just the gender differences but the age differences. As we all get older, we are still quite capable (until health problems intervene). We should be able to continue doing what we want and need to for some time without hearing; "oh, you're too old for that". I agree that we should start with the young, then the change can stay with them through the years.